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Elise/History
Backstory Elise grew up on a rural farm alongside her older brother, her mother, and her father. Immediately following birth, an accident occurred that resulted in Elise’s DNA splitting and morphing with that of a nightingale’s. She took months to regain consciousness following this, but when she did, her small body had changed greatly. Disregarding the accident, the rest of her childhood was relatively normal, for a child of a farmer. Her father’s farm was a direct supplier to the king’s castle, and that’s where her older brother got a job as a royal knight when he hit his early teens. Elise missed him terribly when he left; she couldn’t follow him anymore. Her best friend had disappeared. So, she took her brother’s place as a delivery woman from the farm to the town and the castle following his departure so she could still see him on occasion. When Elise turned 13, she formally visited the castle for the first time, and her brother took her on a tour. She drew the attention of the court doctor, who had a son of a similar age to her. He wished to study the rare bird girl, and so he arranged things so her and his son would become friends. She began visiting the castle much more often, and became a study subject of the doctor. When the doctor’s son reached 15, he took the place of his father, who’d recently passed away: a murder, a fatal poisoning. The king decided to send the young man on a journey across the globe to study medicine. This included a full tour of Asia, and many years spent there, as they were the frontrunners of natural medicine. Elise was sent with him as his personal bodyguard; she had trained with the royal army for years now. It was during this time that the pair found themselves staying in the palace of a powerful emperor; Emperor Han. The autumn equinox was soon to arrive, and the emperor planned to throw his annual gala to celebrate their most important celestial holiday. The doctor was invited to Han’s gala; however, since Elise was neither human nor of higher status, she was not. For the first time, she was made painfully aware of herself, and thus began her terrible shyness. Instead of participating at the gala, she watched longingly from the balcony of her small guest room, which was situated next to her master’s large one. When the doctor began dancing closely with another woman, a beautiful human, a twinge of pain began to spread through her heart. When the doctor began to kiss the woman, Elise’s heart began to break. Never having had this happen to her before, she felt confused with her emotions, and went to walk Emperor Han’s imperial gardens to clear her mind. Little did she know that these gardens were enchanted, full of beautiful white roses. The flowers whispered in the night, and drew her closer to them. One in particular called to her in her mind: a singular large, overgrown rose, situated in the centre of the garden. Bitterly heartbroken, she willingly believed the rose when it told her that she could grant Elise’s any one wish, if she did as the rose told her. Elise told the rose she desired the doctor’s happiness over anything else in the world. It told her that the doctor would forever be happy, no matter what, and be with whomever he loved if she could turn one of the white roses in the garden red. It told her that she could succeed with this if she were to sacrifice her life by pressing her heart onto one of its’ thorns and bleeding out onto a rose while singing the sweetest song she could. Emperor Han noticed his roses singing in the night and knew that another had fallen into his trap, and sent for a servant to deliver the only red rose in the garden to the foreign doctor. The doctor presented the rose to the woman, hoping he would accept her heart. But the woman no longer valued the significance of a singular red rose, and she refused it, desiring jewels instead. Infuriated, the doctor discarded the rose into a drainage ditch, leaving it to wither and die. Elise’s near-dead body was recovered by Emperor Han, who intended to use her as his own personal slave, as he had with the other women who’d believed the horrid lies of his enchanted roses. So, instead of returning Elise to the doctor, he sent the man on his way, telling him that his servants had seen the bird girl fleeing in the night, and that she had not returned. The girl was imprisoned in the palace for years, kept confined and chained in a birdcage in the throne room, where she was tortured and abused by the emperor. She was his personal entertainment, performing song for him at his bidding. He took out his frustrations on her, and often broke her wings or tore out feathers, causing her extreme pain. Recently, Elise broke free during the same festival she was imprisoned during. The emperor, in a drunken haze, had forgotten to lock her cage after visiting her. She fled with abandon, not ceasing her flight until she fainted in the air and fell, crashing through the roof of a recently-finished barn in Fabula. Category:Character Subpages Category:Character History